


Blood Moon

by Inisheer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: #AU Friday, #BuckyNat Week, Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 03:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6498193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inisheer/pseuds/Inisheer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is 1785, and monsters lurk in the Black Forest.</p><p>A Bucky/Nat werewolf AU, because why not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger/content warning for graphic(ish) depictions of violence and (very brief) mention of suicide.

_‘When the moon was full, monsters used to come to our village.’_

Natalie’s breath misted in the night air. By moonlight you could fool yourself that you saw as clear as day, white snow crisp on the ground and the rest of the leafless forest silvery, still, and silent. She’d learned young this was an illusion. The shadows were darker than any sin the priest spoke of on Sundays, and the guards all agreed they’d take hellfire and brimstone over this cold. They swore the frigid air would freeze the blood in their veins. Travellers told them this never happened, not even in the far north where unending night brought a cold like nothing soft southern villagers could imagine; but then, the travellers had never stood vigil outside the village’s fragile palisade in the depths of winter.

This night was particularly clear and cold. High above hung the moon, cursed, and the friendly stars dimmed against its glare. Red-haired Natalie gripped her sword more tightly and glared back at it. The moon brought light, but it was no friend of theirs.

_‘They were great beasts, and they scented after the taste of men’s blood and men’s souls.’_

The hours dragged on. Natalie stood with Stefan, as she had for most of the full moon nights over the last six months. They could not have torches: those drew the beasts. Even in the village every fire would be tamped down and buried tonight. Nor could they talk, nor sing, nor do anything to draw their attention away from the watch. It was strange to see the usually friendly Stefan so quiet, but Natalie appreciated his presence all the same. He was strong, a good man, and he’d been Jakob’s closest friend. He’d stood witness at their wedding, making enough allusions to the state of Natalie’s maidenhood to horrify her mother. Natalie had returned the favour a year later, already widowed, keen eyes on the soft curves of Sharon’s form in a too-tight gown; and now Sharon was heavy with child and had to pray for Stefan behind the walls, with the mothers and old ones and children, and it was on Natalie’s oath to ensure he returned home.

She swung her sword from hand to hand without shifting her gaze from the dark woods. It must be nearing midnight now. With every heartbeat they could dare to hope that perhaps another month would pass without incident, perhaps the creatures would not come, perhaps their footsteps would not pad through the haunted village and their jaws snap shut on children’s bones and their eyes their eyes would not glow cold in the moon’s light perhaps perhaps perhaps.

_‘Sometimes they did not come for many months, but we were never safe. They always returned.’_

She’d only seen that happen once before, when she was a child herself. Every other time the beasts had been fought back; but rarely without loss. Philipp. Greta. Jakob. 

Natalie had known when they married she was a fool to allow herself to be happy. Not here, not in so dangerous a place. They’d talked of leaving, as if they might ever have the money or means to be more than village peasants, and Natalie had known that their time together was already marked. It was simply that when Jakob smiled, when he kissed her, when he brushed his hands over her belly to feel for a fluttering kick, it was so easy to forget where they were or what prowled outside the walls. Until those nights when it was Natalie who waited behind and Sharon who stood beside her friend’s husband - but she’d never blamed Sharon for what had happened. She’d simply cried in relief not to lose her best friend alongside her husband. Or maybe she’d only cried over Jakob. She didn’t remember.

She remembered wrenching pain and blood and the lost kick of a life ended unborn. That had been after, though not by much. There had been no funeral for either. Natalie wondered if it would have helped.

She wondered if, suicide being a sin, God would look harshly upon her for getting herself killed.

_‘They looked like wolves.’_

Halfway between midnight and morning, a dying scream cut through the silence.

It was followed by a howl.

Natalie and Stefan were already moving. To run towards the danger - madness, Natalie thought, the kind that made your blood sing in your veins. She almost wanted to laugh.

A quarter-turn round the palisade they found the battle. Three guards still stood: two young and fresh-faced with their backs to one another while a great monster circled them; the third busy fending off a second of the beasts with his ash-wood staff. A man sat wounded under the branches of a tall elm. Ten feet away, a woman lay with her throat torn out under the paws of another of the monsters, larger yet, jaws smeared with gore. Stefan gave a shout and hurled his iron shield at the beast. It dodged the missile, snarling, and sprang at him.

Natalie was quicker. She darted in and dealt the beast a vicious slash down its side. A natural creature would have cowered. This one turned into the blow, only for Stefan to catch the shield in its ricochet and bring it down upon the beast’s skull. It stumbled.

And Natalie drove her blade up into its throat.

Her own noise of vicious satisfaction might almost have been called a snarl. She yanked the sword out of the beast’s throat and watched for a few hoarse breaths as its lifeblood stained onto the snow. That wasn’t enough. The beasts might look like massive wolves but they were demon more than animal. Natalie lifted her sword again and hacked the monster’s head off. She nudged it half a foot away from the neck to be sure before she looked up again at the melee. Stefan had already gone to the aid of their younger companions. Old Nikolaus continued to battle his opponent with steady patience.

Five guards.

All the guards stood watch in pairs.

There. A swathe in the snow, as if something heavy had been dragged through it. Natalie shouted a warning and set off, running, into the trees. Stefan would be right behind her -

Stefan should be right behind her.

She’d run a hundred yards into the dark woods before she realised she was alone. The sounds of the fight had faded far behind, leaving her in silence, and Natalie knew that if any more of the beasts lurked here she would be unlikely to see them first. But she was the hunter, not the hunted. Her trail was still clear. She kept running.

In a small clearing, Natalie found two grey-furred wolves crouched over a prone figure. Dead, she realised. But then she’d never hoped to save him.

_‘Some said they had once been men, turned into monsters for their sins.’_

She passed the sword from hand to hand. The great wolves slowly raised their heads and sniffed towards her. Their teeth were wet with blood and their eyes were silver. One loped to her right and the other slunk in from the left. They would try to surround her, the way ordinary wolves surrounded lone elk bulls exhausted from a day’s chase, but these beasts had not the patience of wolves and nor did she. Natalie veered left to meet the larger one. Her sword bit air inches from ruffled fur as it danced backwards.

A flicker of movement to her right, and Natalie swung, and brought her arm up to defend her neck. Teeth closed on layers of heavy leather at her elbow. Natalie let the beast’s weight throw her backwards and rolled with the fall, wrestling like she might with a large dog, to flip it onto its back and expose the softer belly. She wrenched her arm free and set both hands on her sword’s hilt, rusted iron gleaming, and rose to drive it in.

There was another shape, a dark blur of movement -

The second beast barrelled into Natalie and sent her flying. Jaws snapped shut inches from her eyes, hot breath on her skin. She’d lost the sword. She reached for a knife instead but, before she could use it, the beast’s growl turned into a whine and it swung away from her.

A third wolf had appeared from the shadows. Dark-furred and strongly built, it launched itself at Natalie’s attacker. She kneeled, watching in amazement for half a second, then snatched up her sword and whirled to catch the remaining beast mid-leap. The sword went deep into the wolf’s chest.

The other two were a blur of movement, of flying fur and claws tumbling across the frozen ground. They parted with flanks heaving and tails bristled high. The grey-furred wolf was matted with blood down one side, limping on a hurt leg, ears flattened back. The other had a badly twisted paw and when she noticed this Natalie’s heart lurched in her chest. Was it possible? Surely not.

This wolf stepped forwards, leaving the other to scurry backwards. Its ears fell back and its tail dropped. Nobody moved for a moment; then the grey-furred wolf broke for the trees. The dark one gave a perfunctory chase for a few bounds before trotting back to Natalie.

She hadn’t been scared before. Now she was struggling to remember how to breathe.

They became _monsters._

The wolf sat down in the snow in front of her.

Natalie slowly sank to her haunches. She set her battered sword aside. The wolf came forwards, almost hesitant, bright eyes shining. It sniffed gently around her face and hair.

‘Jakob?’ said Natalie.

The wolf licked her cheek. Then it ducked its head to nose around her side, and Natalie looked down and felt suddenly faint. The leather of her coat had been torn all the way through and the edges of the rip were damp to the touch. She hadn’t even felt it. She still couldn’t feel it among the other aches and bruises of battle, beyond a dull throb. It was a small wound. Natalie shed her coat and peeled away other layers of clothing to look. A small wound, yes, but that mattered less than the distinctive teethmarks it consisted of.

‘Oh,’ said Natalie.

She absently reached out to stroke behind Jakob’s ears.

_‘Others said they were simply demons, and we were the ones being punished.’_

When Stefan reached the clearing, he found Natalie’s winter coat folded neatly in the snow. Her sword lay on top of it. 

There was a dead wolf.

_‘Then the monsters went away, Mamma.’_

_‘Yes. They have not troubled us since two great wolves came to guard our village at the full moon. People say one has dark fur and the other red, but nobody knows for certain, because nobody has seen more than glimpses of them. But they’re there. They protect us.’_

In a village cottage, a woman named Sharon lulled her son to sleep with old stories. Her husband sat whittling by the hearth fire, in a glow of red and gold that kept the winter cold at bay. An old iron sword and shield hung above the fireplace; and far above, the full moon hung harmlessly in the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for BuckyNat Week 2016 (AU Friday).


End file.
